The Un-Postcard

This is Peterborough to me! Most of the old train tracks have been removed but their are remnants like this all over the city. Some of the railroad coridors have been converted into walking trails one is even part of the Trans-Canada Walking Path.

Beside this track you can just see a modern car. As you look towards the top of the card you see current road reconstruction behind which is parts of both the old General Electric building and the newer BWXT building. On the left side is whats left of what was once a very busy General Electric Employee parking lot. You can't see them well but if you look hard you can also see some of the old WW2 housing that was built also to support the GE staff. 

This is Peterborough! 

The Shape of A Detour

There is a walking path near the YMCA that has been teasing me for a while now. I've noticed it several times on my walks to the Y, and every time I've wondered where it went. I kept telling myself that one day I would follow it.

I have a habit of doing that. If I see a path or a street I've never explored, I want to know where it goes. Not because I'm expecting to find anything special, but simply because it's there and I don't know what's at the other end.

Earlier this month, on my way home from the Art Gallery of Peterborough, I happened to approach that same path from the opposite direction. So now I knew where the section near the YMCA ended.

Except it didn't. The trail continued across the street as far as I could see, which meant that there was at least another kilometre of it. And damned if my curiosity didn't keep bugging me to follow it. So finally, yesterday I did.

 Following My Curiosity

Yesterday I decided that I was going to explore the rest of that path. I entered at Aylmer Street, from the spot that stirred my curiosity in the first place.

It was a pleasant enough walk, a gravel path with houses along some stretches and trees along others. Nothing particularly remarkable, at least at first. Just another one of those routes through Peterborough that people probably use every day without giving much thought to it.

I started counting the sections as I went. I'm not entirely sure why, although I suspect it had something to do with keeping track of how far I'd walked. By the fourth section, I was getting tired, but the trail just kept going.

As I was coming out of the fourth section, I glanced down. That's when I noticed the old railroad rails embedded in the pavement. It was a discovery, and one I knew I should photograph, but I didn't want to stop. I just wanted to find a place to sit.

Mind you, realizing that this was an old rail line was a pleasant surprise and put the whole exploration into a different perspective. I was halfway through the next section when I realized I hadn't photographed the rails. I figured I'd do it on the way back, but then I was surprised again by another set of rails embedded in the street.

I forgot about them almost immediately because across the street, near the beginning of the next section, were some great Halloween displays. Naturally, I photographed those. They were still on my mind as I continued along the trail, so once again I forgot about the tracks. Besides, I was getting so tired that finding somewhere to sit was becoming more important than anything else.

About this time, I started seeing things I recognized, including an apartment building called Princess Court. There was a parking lot tucked in beside the trail, several feet away from the building, which meant that residents had to walk along the street to reach it. Then I spotted some huge concrete blocks. I had no idea why they were there, but they were just about the right height for me to sit on, so I sat for a bit.

I had intended to keep going because I could see a tall, skinny tower a little farther along that I wanted to see up close. But by then I was tired enough that I decided it was time to head home.

 Since I was on Princess Street, I started walking back that way instead of returning along the trail. So I never did get a photograph of those rails. Maybe next time.

There will be a next time. That tower is stuck in my head, and I want to see what it is.

Following the Tracks of Curiosity

As I walked back, I kept thinking about Peterborough's history. We had a strong industrial base, with companies like Quaker Oats, General Electric, and the Canadian Canoe Company playing important roles in the city's development. The railway tracks were everywhere, and we even had streetcars at one time.

Over the years, as railway services disappeared, many of the old tracks were removed and some of the former railway corridors became walking and cycling trails. What had once carried trains through the city now provides a different way to travel through Peterborough.

I'd known about some of these old routes, but until I spotted those rails embedded in the pavement, I hadn't realized that the path I'd been following was one of them.

And that leads me into November. Its theme is Traces of the Past, and right now those old railway lines are dominating my thoughts. I suspect they'll be turning up in more than a few of November's stories.

Besides, this detour isn't finished. There's still that tall, skinny tower I want to investigate, and I want to know what lies beyond it. At some point, the trail should reach the river, and that's when I'll finally be able to say my curiosity has been satisfied.

Although, knowing me, I'll probably find something else to wonder about along the way.

Shadows, Songs, and Sculptures: Our Night at Pumpkins After Dark

There's something deeply nostalgic about a crisp October night. The cold air, the darkness arriving earlier, and that wonderful feeling that something unexpected might be waiting just around the corner.

Earlier this week, Rob and I headed to the Markham Museum grounds for Villains Night at Pumpkins After Dark.

We had barely passed through the entrance when the familiar Addams Family theme began playing. We walked beneath an open pergola-style tunnel, and somewhere along the way, the people around us seemed to disappear. Not literally, of course, but I was so caught up in the atmosphere that I stopped noticing them. I was enjoying that little introduction so much that I never even thought to take a photograph.

Beyond the tunnel stood an illuminated entrance arch, glowing with gorgeous orange and purple lights and carved pumpkin faces. It was clear we were about to enter a wonderfully strange land.

Just past the arch was a stage decorated with dozens of carved pumpkins. You couldn't really call them jack-o'-lanterns; they were works of art! There were villains, Disney characters, and some fantastic dinosaurs.

Nearby were several places where visitors could pose for photographs. We only tried a few, but two turned out to be perfect for us.

The first was a stagecoach. I decided to climb inside and have Rob take my picture. It wasn't until I looked at the photograph afterward that I noticed the story we'd accidentally created. We'd forgotten to close the coach door, but otherwise it was a pretty convincing kidnapping!

Rob's photograph was even better. He was the perfect King of Bones. As you can see, he really brought the regal attitude.

How I managed to get myself kidnapped by a stagecoach driver is still a mystery.

All hail King Rob, ruler of the Throne of Bones

I don't think either of us expected to become characters in the evening's stories, but there we were.

We decided to leave the 3D maze until later and headed toward the pumpkin trail. The first area included a jail scene and a mystery involving an escaped prisoner. There were clues scattered throughout the displays, but solving the mystery wasn't really what interested me. I found a few letters along the way, then promptly forgot about the investigation. There were far too many other things to look at.

We were greeted by what appeared to be collectible cards featuring familiar monsters, including Frankenstein's monster and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Now, I could try to describe every display we passed, but we'd be here all day. Instead, I'll tell you about the ones that stayed with me.

For starters, somebody had made a word search out of pumpkins! Not a little one, either. It was ten rows by twenty columns. A proper word search, only instead of letters printed on paper, the whole thing was made from pumpkins.

There was a set of rebus puzzles, too. I had a little trouble figuring them out, though the second one was a little easier than the others. I don't have the answers, but give them a try.

A little brain exercise among the pumpkins.

A pumpkin puzzle: can you solve the rebus?

I know, I know. It's called Pumpkins After Dark. Of course there were pumpkins everywhere. But it had never occurred to me that somebody would turn them into puzzles. I loved that.

As we wandered farther into the museum grounds, the displays became increasingly elaborate. There were enormous dinosaurs formed from glowing pumpkins, towering above the path. They were impressive, but the creature that really captured my imagination was a massive sea serpent weaving through the darkness. It seemed to rise and fall as though it were swimming through the night itself.

Somewhere in the pumpkin patch, a sea serpent took a wrong turn.

Oddly enough, I rather like the blurred photograph. The creature looks as though it's moving, shifting in and out of the shadows. Not a perfect picture, perhaps, but it captures something of the feeling I had standing there. And sometimes that's better.

Another display that caught my attention was a story told across four illuminated panels. It involved a couple of witches who turned another witch into a cat. The images changed quickly, and I was determined to capture the entire sequence. That turned out to be easier said than done. I did eventually get all four panels photographed, though, and later managed to stitch them together in the correct order.

Three witches, a little magic, and suddenly we're down to one cat!

There was something satisfying about that. I'd brought home a little story hidden among all those pumpkins.

Then there were the famous paintings.

Who knew the great masters worked in pumpkin?

The detail in these pieces was remarkable. I kept thinking about the patience and hand-eye coordination it must have taken to create them. It was one thing to carve a face into a pumpkin. It was quite another to recreate a recognizable work of classic art.

One of the largest displays was a train loaded with pumpkins. It had three cars and a caboose and must have been something like six feet high and ten feet long. There were so many pumpkins that it was difficult to take it all in at once, but again, the detail was fantastic.

All aboard the Pumpkin Express! Next stop: who knows where?

Apparently, even in Pumpkinland, the train is running late.

Along the trail, we also encountered several costumed villains. The first was a mad scientist, and I immediately wanted a photograph of him standing beside Rob. His wild hair reminded me of what Rob's looks like when he lets it grow out. We also met a long, white-faced phantom and a pumpkin-headed character who managed to sneak up on me. I nearly jumped out of my skin!

He sneaked up on me. I think he was rather pleased with himself!	I'm not entirely sure what the Mad Scientist had planned for Rob, but I wasn't volunteering!”
Some people will do anything to get into a photograph.

Not all the pumpkins were frightening, though. One display, for some reason, reminded me of a pumpkin school, with the big pumpkin in charge and all the little ones gathered around.

“Class, pay attention! I don't want to have to carve this lesson into you!

I have no idea whether that's what the artists intended, but it's the story I saw. And that's half the fun, isn't it? Sometimes the artist gives you a story, and sometimes your imagination supplies one of its own.

As we neared the end of the trail, we encountered a set of motorcycles, complete with sound effects, and finally a sweet goodbye carved into pumpkins.

We returned through the tunnel, where a different song was playing. It still made me smile, and once again I forgot to photograph it. Then we headed toward the tent where the maze was waiting.

I think it may have been my first experience with a 3D maze. There were some fantastic images on the walls, and I remember being completely caught up in the experience. We found ourselves at several dead ends, at least three that I can remember. Looking back, I wonder whether they were meant to represent prison cells, since the whole maze was built around the Blackthorne Prison story.

I did manage to take a few photographs near the entrance and toward the end, but mostly I was too busy finding my way through the maze and admiring the artwork.

Welcome to Blackthorne Prison. Checking in is easy. Checking out? Not so much.
I'm sure the entrance was here a minute ago…	Management assures us that everything is under control. Management is also made of pumpkins.

By the time we finished our one-kilometre stroll, our hands were thoroughly cold, but our spirits were bright.

It had been an evening filled with little stories. Some were created by the artists, some appeared unexpectedly in our photographs, and others existed only in my imagination. There were photographs I was delighted with, others that didn't quite work, and moments I never photographed at all. And I wouldn't change any of it.

For a little while, we'd stepped out of the ordinary world and into one filled with light, colour, humour, and imagination. What a wonderful way to spend an October evening.

Reflect: The Year I Actually Lived

We went to Montreal last October, and I was enamoured with Old Montreal. Rob said I would need to be able to walk a lot, but if I could manage it, he would take me back for my birthday this year. That led me to Aquafit. I scheduled myself for three sessions a week and decided I would walk to and from the classes once spring came. That wasn’t the way it worked out, but that was the plan.

Like many of my plans this year, that isn’t what happened. I tried, I really did, but found that, at least in the beginning, I could manage only one class a week. I even walked there or back a few times, but it just left me in pain. I ended up sticking with one class a week. Halfway through the year, my daughter and son-in-law joined my granddaughter and me, so the classes became fun. I still manage only one class a week, but it was enough to make me stronger and get me below the 200 pounds I had been trying to reach for a long time.

A lot of things were like that. One of the hardest lessons of the year was allowing other people to help me. It was strange, really. I loved helping others, including the Outsiders, but I didn’t like asking for help myself. I had to learn how to trust things and people. Sometimes that trust was betrayed, as it was with the Outsiders, but at other times I was extremely grateful for the help I received, especially from Nessa and Dean.

Last October was also my 65th birthday, and that required me to learn a whole new set of rules. Trust me when I tell you that OAS and ODSP are two very different systems, with very different rules. Among other things, I needed to learn how to budget again—not because I had less money, but because I had more. I had no idea how to handle finally having enough to survive and still have a little fun in the process.

Learning to budget again taught me that rigid schedules and the constant recording methods taught to accountants don’t work for me. I had to create my own way of controlling my spending habits.

The year was also full of medical issues and more trips to the hospital than I have made since my chemotherapy. I am learning to listen when my body says it has had enough, but that doesn’t prevent problems with prescribed medications or change the fact that I react badly to THC.

I started taking cannabis to help me sleep and forgot that it could be addictive. It did help, except for the increased depression and anxiety added on top of the depression and anxiety that were already normal for me. Another lesson learned—I just needed to end up in an ambulance before I learned it.

I remember thinking in October that I didn’t have any hobbies anymore and that I had stopped being creative. It’s funny how we remember things we have accepted as true even when they aren’t. Granted, I wasn’t knitting anymore or doing many of the other things I used to do, but I was writing. I was working on a book I had been trying to write for years. I even finished it, only to discover when I began editing that I had lost the plot somewhere along the way.

I put the book aside for a while, but I began writing blog posts again. I also learned how to make Pinterest pins well enough that I gained a few followers and began seeing my pins on other people’s boards. That was real. It was my work, and people liked it. That gave my ego a bit of a boost.

My creativity wasn’t gone, but I thought my curiosity was. It turned out I was wrong about that too. I just needed a new direction.

I found that direction when I came across a pin on Pinterest about the Wander Society. I don’t know where the pin originated, and I can’t recall the author’s name right now. Wandering sounded interesting, but I needed a way to record it because what is a wander except looking for the strange and different?

Cue my phone camera.

I began taking pictures again. It was like rediscovering an old friend and finding a comfortable companion for those walks. And while I still don’t walk to the YMCA for Aquafit, I have walked between 9,000 and 12,000 steps in a day without becoming bored or even noticing how far I had travelled. Walking returned in a new and much more interesting form. I was even able to walk a kilometre a day with Rob during the summer, at least for a few days.

We did a lot of travelling during the warmer months and even went to Calgary for a week. That cost me the return trip to Old Montreal, but it was worth it. I have been to many places and even got lost one day on the back roads near my old home in Buckhorn. My camera has been my best companion. I now seem to have thousands of photographs and so many happy memories.

One thing that emerged that I wasn’t expecting was an increased interest in history—my own history in particular, and the history of buildings and places in general. I think that as we age, we become more concerned with sharing the lives we have lived and recognizing the history of those who came before us.

One thing I am certain of is that, for the first time since COVID, living has become more than just recovery. My horizons have expanded a lot.

Notice: Paying attention to the little things

I thought noticing meant paying closer attention. Maybe it also means letting myself be surprised.

I am good at seeing things most people ignore. I learned early in my life to be aware and pay attention, not because of any abuse or trauma, but because I was very clumsy. Over the years I have managed to get better at not tripping over my own feet when something catches my eye, although apparently there are still limits.

Noticing starts with seeing. A black-and-white bird I don't recognize. A tiny stream almost buried under greenery and hidden by stone. Those are the kinds of things I see. They aren't necessarily important and I don't have to do anything with them. Something catches my attention and, instead of immediately moving on, I stop and look.

I have no lesson for you this week, only a suggestion. Look out your nearest window and slowly look up, down and sideways. Stop when something draws your attention and really look at it. This isn't a quick scan but a slow, deliberate look. Or, if you can, step outside and walk 100 yards in any direction and do the same thing. The point is simply to see what you might normally skip over. That is noticing.

Noticing doesn't have to be directed outward. I am tired today, and that is another way to notice. Turn the same attention toward yourself. Pay attention to the aches and pains, the feel of the fabric against your skin, what feels good and what feels bad. Notice even the things you generally don't pay attention to. Give yourself the same slow attention you just gave the world outside your window.

Calgary gave me plenty of opportunities to practice this. I went to Reader Rock Garden expecting a rock garden laid out on relatively level ground, only to discover that the rocks were actually steps and the garden was vertical. It was a beautiful place, emphasis on beautiful, but definitely not what I expected. I probably wouldn't have seen nearly as much of it if I hadn't been determined to reach the café, which, as it happens, sits about halfway up what felt very much like a rock mountain.

The next day I went to the Calgary Central Library expecting an uninspiring building full of books and things. Instead, I found somewhere I could have explored for hours. Even the building surprised me, with its shape inspired by a Chinook cloud. I was particularly drawn to the fourth floor, with its Indigenous teachings and books, Canadian and world history, and inviting places to sit and read. Did I mention that this place was huge?

Maybe that is what I am learning about noticing. It isn't about searching for something extraordinary. It is about giving the ordinary enough time to become interesting. Expectation tells us what we think we're going to see. Noticing gives what is actually there a chance to surprise us. 

Following Curiosity

Most of my walks naturally fit this month's theme without me trying to make them fit. I don't set out thinking, "I need material for the blog." I simply go for a wander or two, and the story appears.

When I looked back over the week, I realized the story wasn't really about the places I visited. I think it's about what an adventure has become for me. It isn't going to BC or Ottawa. Those were the kinds of experiences I thought of as adventures.

 These days, adventure has taken on a different meaning. It might be following my curiosity down an unfamiliar street, noticing something I'd probably walked past for years, checking on a photography project, or realizing that morning glories are appearing all over the city.

Morning glories became part of a project I hadn't expected to begin. At first they were simply beautiful flowers climbing the trees and covering the raspberry bed in the back corner of the garden. I watched them slowly smother the raspberry canes in one corner until nothing else could grow there. That's when I learned that, although beautiful, they can also overwhelm everything around them. While out on one of my walks, I came across a hedge completely covered in morning glory vines and couldn't help wondering if the same thing would happen there. I've started photographing that hedge every couple of weeks to see how the story unfolds.

 Those photographs are becoming a pictorial essay I'm calling Deadly Beauty. I never planned that project. It grew out of simply paying attention.

The same thing happened with a couple of robins. I didn't go looking for them; they found me. Anyone who has ever tried photographing robins knows they rarely stay in one place for more than a few seconds. These two seemed perfectly content to let me stand there taking photographs until I had several I was genuinely happy with. Those photographs have already become more than pictures. They've inspired a journal page and even a writing prompt. Once again, curiosity quietly opened another creative door.

 That's a very different definition of adventure, and I think many of you will recognize yourselves in it. There are so many things to see if we simply spend the time looking. I don't think these discoveries were hidden. They had probably been there all along. I just wasn't paying enough attention to notice them.

As I looked back over the week, it occurred to me that my adventures naturally fell into two groups. There were the larger adventures, like turning down an unfamiliar street just to see where it led. Then there were the smaller adventures—the discoveries that only happened because I'd made that choice in the first place.

Maybe that's the real lesson. Adventure doesn't always ask us to go farther. Sometimes it simply asks us to look more closely.

Today's adventure can be solitary and unplanned, like wandering down an unfamiliar street. Tomorrow's adventure could be shared and planned—a family meal, a movie, laughter, and time together. It is becoming clear to me that adventure isn't one thing. Sometimes it's wandering without a destination. Sometimes it's making time for the people you love. Sometimes it's both.

As I was writing about my week, I found myself thinking that my July theme of Freedom & Play has quietly been present all along. Freedom isn't just choosing a different street to walk down. It's also giving yourself permission to be curious, to linger, to photograph an empty storefront because it means something to you, and to let an ordinary Friday afternoon become part of your story.

Maybe that's the biggest change of all. I used to measure adventure by how far I travelled. Now I measure it by how closely I pay attention.

 So, dear reader, here's an invitation. You don't need to book a holiday or climb a mountain. Your next adventure might begin by taking the long way home, noticing the flowers growing on a neighbour's porch, or turning down a street you've always meant to explore. You may discover, as I have, that the farther you let your curiosity wander, the richer your ordinary days become.